


Lookalike

by uwusunflower



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Branjie, F/F, Kamjie, Unhappy ending ig?, highschool breakup uwu :(, love problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uwusunflower/pseuds/uwusunflower
Summary: Vanessa had never let her sink into the familiar comfort of shuffling around crowded parties to sulk into the back corner.  She grasped at that little bit of Brooke that reality hadn’t overtaken with anxiety and a constant craving to be eternally alone, she pulled her out of the plunging darkness in a way that Brooke’s mind couldn’t help but allow her to continue drowning in. Only a month or so ago, on a summer night, they had met gazing eyes across some other party.  Only a month or so ago had it been Brooke’s arm wrapped around her waist.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes & Nina West, Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo/Kameron Michaels, Monét X Change/Nina West, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo/Kameron Michaels
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Lookalike

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hi!! This is another Conan inspired oneshot surrounding branjie/kamjie shennanigans!! Warning for implied manic/depressive episodes, angsty breakup, and unrequited feelings :( read safely!!

Let's go back to the summer night  
When we met eyes, it's like a movie line

She was good at being a wallflower, she was well-practiced in people watching, taking notice of the things she prayed nobody took the time to notice about her. 

It was flesh against flesh in someone’s backyard after the game, hot, intoxicated bodies intermingling in ways that made Brooke feel sick to her stomach. The air felt hot, and thick with something that lingered overtop of her consciousness too much to ignore. 

She watched from afar as a toned arm snaked around the Latino girl’s waist, fingers gently clutching onto the fabric of her basketball jersey.

Vanessa had never let her sink into the familiar comfort of shuffling around crowded parties to sulk into the back corner. She grasped at that little bit of Brooke that reality hadn’t overtaken with anxiety and a constant craving to be eternally alone, she pulled her out of the plunging darkness in a way that Brooke’s mind couldn’t help but allow her to continue drowning in. Only a month or so ago, on a summer night, they had met gazing eyes across some other party. Only a month or so ago had it been Brooke’s arm wrapped around her waist. 

Kissin' underneath the city lights  
But now you're laying in another’s arms

“Brooke,” Vanjie muttered, pulling away from the taller girl’s lips. She let her forehead rest against hers, heavy, alcohol tinted breaths escaping her lips. 

“Yeah?” She answered, slender fingers grazing the soft skin of the girl’s exposed lower back. 

The shorter girl’s eyes held something that even now, Brooke couldn't completely see, something that the hazy yellow glow of city street lights didn’t illuminate enough to notice. Lower lip clenched between her teeth, she shook her head, moving to gently push a lock of blonde hair behind Brooke’s ear. “Nothing,” she whispered, reaching back up to let their lips collide once more. 

'Cause I'm all gone

“Fuck, Brooke, why can’t you just… talk to me?” Vanessa pondered, back slouched against the stall door from the other side. As much as she craved, whether for herself or for Brooke, to feel Brooke’s hand interlocked in hers, she didn’t feel like she could keep stomaching seeing her lover like this. It was a scary type of feeling, watching someone you cared for shaking with this… this fear that you would never be able to relate to or take away from them. To see a girl that she had spent so long pulling out of her shell quickly crawling back in, deeper than she was initially. 

“You don’t get it,” Brooke croaked, knees pulled close to her chest. Despite holding herself so close to the wall her back muscles ached, she wanted nothing more than for them to just absorb her completely, to make her disappear. “And you’re never going to get it,” she spoke, a certain venom leaking into her words that she couldn’t prevent. Her eyes were red and irritated with the tears that wouldn’t stop. “You’re this… this God here, if you disappeared the world would stop it’s orbit, I would stop my orbit. And when I’m all gone… nothing stops. There’s no tears, there’s no pause, not even for a millisecond. Everything just keeps on moving,” she whispered. Her hands trembled as she fiddled with her fingers, cuticles an angry red color, tinted scarlet from the small droplets of blood that had smeared across the skin. “I just wanna be gone.”

But when you look in her eyes  
Do you think of mine?

“Do you think they’re dating?” Scarlet questioned, puckering her lips in the bathroom mirror as she looked into her own reflection. That girl stared at herself with such a fascination that nobody couldn’t comprehend, how someone could be so infatuated with a face they had seen everyday for seventeen years. 

Brooke slumped against the stall door, picking at her cuticles until they were an angry red color. 

Ariel shrugged, fluffing her hair in an attempt to give her blonde more volume. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she spoke dully. “Kameron’s been sweet on Miss Vanjie for a while, she was gonna make her move this summer but then she started hanging all around Brooke.”

She wasn’t stupid, she saw the way Kameron looked at Vanessa, the longing. Her eyes glimmered when she entered a room, how the athletic girl leaned closer into conversations with Vanessa than she did anyone else. 

Scarlet pouted slightly, glossy lips turned downward as Brooke watched the pair of girls through the crack between the stall’s door. “I don’t know, I feel kind of bad for her. It must suck, seeing Vanessa all lovey-dovey puppy dog eyes for Kam after everything this summer…”

And when you look at that smile  
Do I cross your mind?

A hot breath escaped her lips as she pulled away from the blonde, letting her head slump against Brooke’s exposed shoulder. Her hair smelled artificially sweet, fluffy ginger hair lingering with a scent of either cotton candy or vanilla, possibly even winter candy apple for all Brooke could spare the attention to notice. “How much longer are we gonna keep doing this, Brookie?” Nina simpered, pulling her knit blanket tighter across her upper chest.

Brooke’s ears burned, whether from the embarrassment at her friend’s words, or the bitter cold of the October air, she was unable to pinpoint. The stars had been carelessly speckled across a backdrop of blackish blue sky. Once drizzled with a hazy palette of warm peachy hues, the sunset had quickly slipped past the horizon, leaving Nina and Brooke perched on the hood of Brooke’s dash.

Their temporary infatuation was convenient at best, burying unspoken confessions of unrequited love for others into each other's lips, a lust to feel something other than the longlasting emptiness of being in highschool. Nina was a smart girl, smarter than Brooke by all means. She was smart enough to see through the empty glimmer in the ballet prodigy’s eyes, the pain behind forced smiles that felt more well-practiced to her than a pirouette, the longful gazing into the back of her ex-lovers brain in the lunchroom. 

“Doing what?” Brooke questioned melancholily, lacking the energy to force false pleasantry into her tone of voice. 

“Pretending that this is something… more than a distraction. Because… because Vanjie is with Kameron and Monét is...not interested in me,” Nina visibly squirmed at her last few words, discomfort settling in at the mention of her real romantic interest. 

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder… if I’m still ruining her life,” she admitted weakly, voice cracking beneath the honesty. Something about the darkness was drawing her in, like slender fingers attached themselves around her body and cracked her apart inside. “If-if what I did haunts her the way it does me,” she whispered, feeling hot tears pooling in her eyes. “If she looks at Kameron’s smile and I cross her mind… it’s eating me alive, Nina,” ashamed, she held her head in her hands, pulling harshly at her blonde locks in an attempt to feel something, anything physical, even if it was merely a new manifestation of pain. 

I Know in your head

“What's going on in that head of yours, pretty girl?”

Looking up from her borrowed paper-back novel, Brooke smiled softly, seeing Vanessa holding two drinks. Gently, she took a whip-cream topped mug from the other girls hands, the warmth of the ceramic making her feel all cozy inside. 

Vanessa was an everflowing beam of light, juxtaposing the constant dark clouds Brooklynn’s brain threw her under. 

“Nothing,” she lied casually. ”How was practice?” 

You see me instead

“Brooke?”

Nina touched the other girl’s arm, pulling her hand away from yanking at her blonde hair painfully. She felt herself wince at how cold her hands were, slender fingers freezing. Hot tears slowly slipped down the dancer’s hollow cheeks as she cried quietly to herself, chest aching from inhaling so much cold air. 

Brooke craved the warmth Vanessa’s arms used to bring her, contrasting tones of soft skin caressing against one another under the sheets of her bed. She sought the same serotonin that Vanessa brought her her just by existing, seeing her cuddle with Henry on the sofa, hearing her cacklish laugh at stupid little TikTok videos, seeing her get excitably distracted by things at the mall. 

“Everywhere I look all I see is her, when I go to the library with you or Asia, when I run into Yvie in the hallways, I just see her instead,” Brooke sobbed, curling into herself as she held her knees to her chest. 

Cause he looks a lot like I did back then

“You know, I think Miss Vanjie has a type,” Nina stated as she pushed another forkful of some sort of leftover pasta into her mouth. 

Brooke looked upwards from her salad, dull eyes glancing over to her childhood friend. “What?”

“Don’t give me that look,” the ginger girl spoke bluntly. “She’s all tall blondes and abs, that one,” Nina nodded in the direction of the tables behind her. 

Willing herself to turn around, she saw Kameron Michaels, eyes all sparkly as she leaned into Vanessa as she spoke. Nausea filled her stomach, and Brooke couldn’t resist wincing at the sight before her. 

Baby don’t lie

“What more do you want from me, Brooke?” Vanessa questioned, exhausted of this back and forth dialogue with her former lover. A night full of bouncing between friends in the crowded party atmosphere within Asia’s yard and house had led to a feeling of suffocation, leading her to abandon her group for some fresh air. To now, feeling cornered by Brooklyn on the porch. 

“Do you really like her?” Brooke asked quietly, mumbling enough she almost wished the Latina hadn’t heard her question. 

“Who?” Vanessa spoke questioningly. “Kameron? She’s … I don’t know, but to an extent. Yeah, I like her, I really do,” she admitted quietly, almost as if she was ashamed to be so candid with a girl she no longer trusted. 

Brooke nodded, feeling dumb for even asking. “That’s… great,” she lied, clenching the red plastic cup in her hand. “I’m glad you found somebody.”

He’s just a lookalike.


End file.
